Milk collected from dairy animals is charged by the dairy farmer into farmstead refrigerated tanks to await a trucker agent from a milk processing plant. During his/her farmstead visit, the trucker agent determines whether the milk sanitation merits being pumped into the truck tank for delivery to the processing plant. Assuming the milk is sanitary and merits being pumped into the truck tank, the agent samples the dairy farm's milk into a cylindrical vial which is identified and placed into a rectangular rack located within a truck ice chest. At the processing plant laboratory, the farm's vial sample is qualitatively evaluated. In fact, with automated laboratory analytical equipment, vial samples from numerous dairy farms can be placed into a multi-compartments and ratchetably-conveyable lineal tray cartridge for the automatic laboratory equipment.
The aforementioned milk collection, vial sampling, and automated qualitative analysis procedure would be more sanitary and efficient if the multi-compartments and ratchetably-conveyable laboratory trays were employed at the dairy farm by the trucker agent whereby milk sample vials might be handled but once prior to laboratory qualitative analysis. However, though currently available laboratory trays are desireably lengthy for automated analysis, they are too lengthy for storage within the pickup agent's truck ice chest. Moreover, currently available laboratory trays do not hold vial samples sufficiently securely for traversal along unpaved rural roadways.